Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a methodology of strategies, techniques and tactics used to increase the amount of visitors to a website by obtaining a high search rank on a Search Engine Result Page (SERP).

To achieve a top search rank for a website, it's more like a marathon than a sprint. There are steps to be taken understanding top ranking factors. Each steps get you closer to your goal. So it's important to know what the top ranking factors are.

To achieve a top search rank for a website, it’s more like a marathon than a sprint. There are steps to be taken understanding top ranking factors. Each step gets you closer to your goal. So it’s important to know what the most important ranking factors are.

Here are 24 top ranking factors for a high search rank with search engines.

KEYWORDS: Create relevance with your audience. Here are the places where they should be seen on a website.

KEYWORD IN DOMAIN NAME: Exact match domains tend to perform extremely well in the SERPs. But if the desired domain name is taken or, for branding purposes, if it is better to go for a brand name as your domain name, there are other ways to pursue keywords.

KEYWORDS IN THE URL: Every URL on a website is a place to put keywords. And, there are up to 115 characters that search engines capture. Keep them clean and user friendly. For example, http://www.wordtracker.com/academy/seo-clean-urls is a simple description of keywords in a url title that describe what the webpage is about.

KEYWORDS IN PAGE TITLES: It’s much easier to stick your keyword in page titles. Make sure that your titles also look natural and appealing because people buy what you’re selling, not search bots.

KEYWORDS IN H1 TEXT: H1 is an HTML tag normally used to mark headings. When your keywords stand in H1 tags, they carry more weight.

KEYWORDS IN IMAGE ALT TEXT: Image alt text is what gets displayed instead of your image when it cannot be loaded. If image alt texts reflect the rest of the keywords on your page, this sends the search engines a signal that your page is relevant to the search query, and they rank it higher.

KEYWORDS IN ANCHOR TEXT: Internal linking is important for higher rankings. To attain the desired effect, use your keywords in the anchor texts on web pages.

KEYWORD DENSITY IN COPY: Keywords should be present in copy. The exact number of keywords to increase search rank the on the industry. There is no ideal keyword density that’ll work for every site.

LINKS: Establish authority with your area of expertise. Here is how to use them.

OUTBOUND LINKS: Linking to authoritative pages sends trust signals to the search engine. It shows you want your audience to learn more of the subject. This is a huge trust factor for Google.

INTERNAL LINKS: Interlinking pages on your site can pass their strength between them. It also makes it easier for your audience to get to specific areas of the website.

NUMBER OF LINKING DOMAINS: The number of domains linking to you is one of the most important ranking factors.

AUTHORITY OF LINKING DOMAINS: Not all links are equal The authority of the domain used is an influencing rank factor too.

SITE FACTORS: Help search engines and your audience understand what your site is about; the better is the understanding, the higher the search rank.

INDEXED PAGES: The number of pages on search engine that a website appear. More is generally better.

SITE MAP: A sitemap helps search engine to index all pages on your site. It is the simplest and most effective way to search engines what pages your website includes.

SITE LOADING SPEED: To search engines and your customers, site loading speed impacts search rank. 47% of web users expect a website to load in under two seconds. 51% of online shoppers in the U.S claimed if a site is too slow they will not complete a purchase (source: Search Engine Journal)

SITE ERRORS: Numbers are often used to account for errors that may be occurring on a website. A 404 error occurs when a webpage is served to a user who tries to access a page that cannot be located at the URL provided. A 401 error happens when a website visitor tries to access a restricted web page but isn’t authorized to do so, usually because of a failed login attempt. A 500 error is a general-purpose error message for when a web server encounters some form of internal error. For example, the web server is overloaded. There are some of the most common site errors.

MOBILE OPTIMIZED SITE: 46% of searchers used mobile exclusively to research. And the number are increasing. Having a mobile optimized site is having a bigger impact on search rank as time goes by. (source: Positionly)

GOOGLE (OR BING) WEBMASTER TOOLS INTEGRATION: If you site is verified by Google Webmasters Tools, it help with your sites indexing. Webmaster Tools in general provide valuable data to better optimize your site.

GOOD CONTENT: Amplifies relevance and authority. No website get to a high search rank without good content.

CONTENT LENGTH: Searchers want to be educated. They won’t satisfy with basic information. The authority and informativeness of content is very important.

DUPLICATE CONTENT: Not all factors can influence your rankings in a positive way. Having similar content across various pages of your site can actually hurt your rankings. Avoid duplicating content and write original copy for each page.

CONTENT UPDATES: Search engine algorithms prefers freshly updated or “dynamic” content. It is one reason blogs have such strong value for search rank. This does mean that you have to continually edit web pages. It does mean, on an annual basis, you should have a strategy for freshening up page content.

IMAGES AND VIDEOS: Good content doesn’t have to always involve words. Images and videos are just as important. They provide opportunities for Alt Text with Keywords and Links.

SOCIAL MEDIA: Provides additional sources of traffic, links and web pages. They are important contributors to a high search rank.

SOCIAL REPUTATION: Just as search engines don’t count all links equally, they don’t view all social accounts as being the same. Having your own social presence that is well regarded is important. You want to gain references from social accounts with good reputations. Participate on relevant social platforms in a real, authentic way.

SOCIAL SHARES: Similar to links, getting quality social shares is helpful. Good things happen when more people see your site or brand. Nowhere is this more apparent than Google+.

SOCIAL PRESENCE: Having more than one entry on a search page can only increase the chance of a click. Your social network are additional web pages that help people get to know you and drive traffic to your website. And people like to do business with people they know.

Do these ranking factors help you understand search rank? Does you business need help getting to a top search rank? Are there top ranking factors you would include that we missed?

90% of the world’s total data has been created just within the past two years (source: IBM)

87% agree capturing and sharing the right data is important to effectively measuring ROI in their own company (BRITE/NYAMA)

These facts say loud and clear companies believe data helps them make better business decisions.

Big Data is a broad term for data that comes from places like web browsers, social networks, census, surveillance and sensors. It’s stored in computer clouds, and searched for patterns, predictive analytics and insights.

According to IDS, in the next 12-18 months, organizations plan to invest in skill sets necessary for big data deployments, including data scientists (27%), data architects (24%), data analysts (24%), data visualizers (23%), research analysts (21%), and business analysts (21%).

But is bigger better?

Here are 10 data experts who explain why little data is the new big data.

“What we track determines where we focus and what we are motivated to improve. Why do people obsess over LinkedIn Connections or Twitter followers? SAT scores, golf handicaps, or even gas mileage? Because they are observable metrics that are easy to compare. Before you obsess over a particular metric, make sure it’s the right metric to obsess over.” – Johan Berger

“How to beat the big data giant? Start by thinking little data, as in David vs. Goliath. The first step in the little data process is to identify key business objectives that your organization would like to have data solve. Make big decisions and eliminate the need to capture and manage the irrelevant data within the 2.4 quintillion bits of digital data generated each day from the big data stream.” – Gary Drenik, Forbes

“Size in itself doesn’t matter – what matters is having the data, of whatever size, that helps us solve a problem or address the question we have. For many problems and questions, small data in itself is enough. The data on household energy use, the times of local buses, government spending – these are all small data.” – Rufus Pollock, Open Knowledge Foundation

“Corporate decision-makers often would be better served if they rely on tried-and-true tools and systems from the world of Little Data, rather than illusions from Big Data. Sampling theory teaches that if the sample is random, one can measure the behavior or mood of the whole by talking to very few people. A sample of 1,500 is sufficient to predict who will win a presidential election. A sample of 200-300 respondents is generally sufficient to predict how much the whole population will like a new product or service.” – Jerry W. Thomas, Decision Analyst

“Big Data is what organizations know about people — be they customers, citizens, employees, or voters. Data is aggregated from a large number of sources. Little Data is what we know about ourselves. What we buy. Who we know. Where we go. How we spend our time. Without Little Data, Big Data has a tendency to become Big Brother. We’ve all experienced that unsettling feeling when ads follow us on the web.” – Mark Bronchek, Harvard Business Review

“Log daily. Reflect quarterly. Plan yearly. This simple model can provide the data and structure you need to take control. Your yearly reflection will provide you the insight needed to make clear, data-driven decisions.” – John Caddell, author The Mistake Bank

“Big data’s little brother is ‘small data’ or traditional KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) that help to measure success in companies. Any data, and in particular ‘big data’, only becomes meaningful and relevant in the context of the business success, measured by KPIs.” – Bernard Marr, Advanced Performance Institute

“Little data constitutes the nuts and bolts metrics of running a business. For a Web property, that means getting a handle on issues such as the bounce rate, SEO session starts, social session starts, funnels of how users flow through a property, and page views per session. Too many people lose sight of these simple but critical metrics.” – Peter Varad, Cnet

“So if you’re wondering whether to use big or little data, fuhgetaboutit. Instead you should be wondering whether your company is good at using data period. If it isn’t, then that’s the battle you should fight.” – Pam Baker, Fierce Big Data

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http://barnraisersllc.com/2015/02/15-facebook-ads-case-studies-prove-roi/#commentsSun, 15 Feb 2015 15:06:48 +0000http://barnraisersllc.com/?p=9128For these 15 brands, the right ad was served to the right person at the right time.

But much of the credit belongs to the brands who are featured. They set measured investments, tested a variety of Facebook ad properties and used the media channel to engage and interact with their Fan base. From strategies that had a specific plan and purpose, they saw a return that exceeded expectations.

1,500 stories are waiting to be seen every time a person visits their Facebook News Feed according to Facebook.

Facebook also says their algorithm prioritizes them to users so they see what they’re most likely to be interested. Do they?

For these 15 brands, the right ad was served to the right person at the right time.

But much of the credit belongs to the brands who are featured. They set measured investments, tested a variety of Facebook ad properties and used the media channel to engage and interact with their Fan base. From strategies that had a specific plan and purpose, they saw a return that exceeded expectations.

Here are 15 case studies that prove the ROI of Facebook ads.

1-800-FLOWERS: Began to use its Facebook page during the Valentine’s Day season to extend its social community and help consumers pick and purchase flowers with ease. The flower company used Facebook ads to give fans 15% their purchase and 50 Facebook Credits to be used on Facebook Games. They implemented Shared Stories that allowed friends of consumers see what they were buying. 4,000 transaction are directly attributable to the effort and Likes doubled to 120,000+.

ANA (ALL NIPON AIRWAYS): used a creative grouping of keywords to target advertising to users specifically interested in traveling and Japanese culture and developed ad creative that resonated with their audience. Facebook ads resulted in a 25% CTR. Conversion resulted in positive ROI which is unique for ANA considering their product is not an impulse purchase for most people and Japan is not traditionally seen as a leisure destination.

ARIA RESORT AND CASINO: decided to make its Facebook Page, where it has more than 200,000 fans, the hub of its campaign. ARIA ran a Facebook Offer that included a $110 resort credit plus VIP passes to its Haze nightclub, available to all customers who booked two nights on select dates. ARIA used Premium Facebook Ads and sponsored stories driving to its booking site featuring the promotion. ARIA saw more than 1,500 room nights booked for a nearly 5X ROI.

ARTLOG: A social platform allowed people to connect with the international art scene. The company decided to use Facebook Ads to promote events and sell tickets to art events like exhibitions, tours, and discussions. For $75 Artlog spent on Facebook, it saw $200 in ticket sales

BASEBALL ROSE: Offered artificial roses made from real baseballs and softballs. They spent $200.00 to grow their fan base, and made $1,000 in Facebook revenue from that investment.

BOOKIT.COM: A private booking company for vacations wanted to grow its connections to its Facebook page and engage more with its existing fans. The company promoted a giveaway called “Trip a Day in May Giveaway” where it gave away a free trip each day during the month of May. It also targeted friends of fans and used Sponsored Stories to get more connections. There was a 30% month over month revenue increase in June and a 1400% increase in revenue for the quarter.

CANVAS PEOPLE: wanted to drive brand recognition and establish a presence on Facebook to: 1) Increase fan engagement to build a dedicated Facebook community and 2) drive Facebook fans to purchase directly from

CIL: A Canadian paint company, created a Facebook app and invited people to create more ‘manly’ paint colour names. Notable examples include ‘beer foam'; ‘razor burn'; ‘hockey puck'; and ‘pansy violet’. Over a 45-day period and on a small budget, the campaign generated well over $1,000,000 in earned media exposure, 100 million online impressions and most importantly, a 10% increase in sales.

GRAVITY DEFYER: A shoe retailer, used Facebook ads, promoted and boosted to directly talk to customers and make sure any customer service issues are addressed through the channel. The opportunity for direct response and customer interaction doubled revenue attribution from Facebook in the past 10 months and drove one-fourth of its overall website traffic from Facebook. As a result from their efforts on Facebook, the team saw an average ROI of 450%, with campaigns ranging from 300% to 600% ROI.

HUBSPOT: The all-in-one marketing software platform wanted to promote its brand in a 3-month campaign as a thought leader in the B2B field on Facebook to: 1) Lead fans to its Page and ultimately engage them with other content and 2) drive customer engagement and generate more leads. HubSpot saw a 71% sales increase coming from Facebook and a 15% increase in ROI.

LUXURY LINK: Ran Facebook Ads that offered travel packages for people interested in upscale getaways. They marketed a live chat with a Caribbean travel expert. The ads were targeted at married people interested in Chanel, Fendi official Page, Prada and Starbucks. Here is a sample of the ad copy used: “Get 65% offa luxury vacation. Book your dream getaway today!” 100% increase in sales for travel packages coming from Facebook

NILA WAFERS: showed sales increase of +9% in test market locations among consumers who saw Facebook ads versus a control group of consumers over the course of a five-month campaign. The Facebook ad campaign for Nilla Wafers also was able to reach 11.3 million households through 190 million total impressions (16.8 impressions per household).

ROSEWOOD KENNEL: Breed German Shepherds. They spent just $30.00 growing their fan base before they sold their first puppy. Each puppy goes for $1,350. They saw a 4400% ROI

TOUGH MUDDLER: The 12-mile obstacle course events company wanted to use Facebook to spread the word about its series of obstacle course challenges that take place in different cities around the world. They saw a 24X increase in sales in just two years, with Facebook being the primary advertising and engagement channel for the company; a 5-10X return on advertising spend on Facebook and a 5-8X higher click-through rate (CTR) for ads in news feed vs. traditional ad displays.

VAMPLETS: A small business that makes baby vampire dolls introduced Facebook ads as a new channel for driving revenue. Despite a fairly small Facebook ad budget of $250 per month, they’re generating an additional $1,000 in revenue, directly tracked to the ads themselves. This gives them a positive ROI of 300% and shows how cost-effective Facebook ads can be, particularly when you’re going out to a more unique or targeted audience.

Does your business use Facebook ads? Do you have a strategy and plan for them? Do these case studies convince you of the ROI that’s possible if you do?

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http://barnraisersllc.com/2015/02/17-kpis-for-b2b-marketers/#commentsSun, 08 Feb 2015 14:56:19 +0000http://barnraisersllc.com/?p=9109KPIs are metrics tied to a target. For B2B marketers, KPIs should be the five or six most important metrics that measure the success of their strategy to increase and accelerate commerce transactions between businesses.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are quantifiable measurements, agreed to beforehand, that reflect the critical success factors of an organization. They differ depending on the type of business, but, for any business, they are the actionable scorecard that keeps their strategy on track as this video from Erica Olsen of OnStrategy shows

KPIs are metrics tied to a target. For B2B marketers, KPIs should be the five or six most important metrics that measure the success of their strategy to increase and accelerate commerce transactions between businesses.

What KPIs should B2B Marketers consider to keep their strategy on track? Here are 17 essential KPIs for B2B marketers,

SALES REVENUE: A KPI scorecard start with the primary measurement that determines success. Sales revenue is often considered #1. It may be obvious but it also shows offline and critical business requirements are integral to any KPI scorecard.

PROFITS: But not all B2B customers are equal. Some may generate strong sales revenue but also involve a lot of costs to maintain. That’s why, to some B2B businesses, sales revenue is important, but profits are more important because they provide a stronger measure on the health and viability of the business.

WEBSITE VISITS (SESSIONS): A visit is one individual visitor who arrives at a web site and proceeds to browse. A visit counts all visitors, no matter how many times the same visitor may have been to the site.

WEBSITE UNIQUE VISITORS (USERS): A unique visit tells which visits from previous item are visiting the site for the first time. The website can track this as unique by the IP address of the computer.

MOBILE VS. DESKTOP VISITS: According to Marketing Land, mobile devices are responsible for 30% of website visits and 15% of online orders. And growing. So understanding what devices prospect use to access a website and the experience they have on a mobile device is now important.

BOUNCE RATE: The percentage of single-page sessions (i.e. sessions in which the person left your site from the entrance page without interacting with the page). Bounce Rates are considered a measure of a website’s relevance because, in most cases, if a website is relevant, visitors will view more than a single page.

SALES LEADS: The identification of a person or entity that has the interest, authority and budget to be a customer. From a measurement standpoint, this might be determined by someone who subscribes to a newsletter, downloads an ebooks or attends a webinar. Or the total of people who do these and other related activities.

QUALIFIED LEADS: Like profits may be more important to some businesses than sales; qualified leads are more important than leads. A qualified lead with need, budget and buying authority; who meets the customer profile or Buyer Persona and has a buying horizon that falls within your business plan. The criteria for a qualified lead is often debated withing B2B companies. That’s why making “Qualified Leads” a KPI is productive because the definitaion of the KPIs have to be agreed-to before it can be measured.

COST PER ACQUISITION (CPA): How much is it costing you to acquire each lead? How many leads are generated by each one of your marketing efforts, and what’s the value of those leads? Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) is a metric that helps connect the value of marketing with results. It help determine if there is Return on Investment (ROI) for the initiatives being undertaken.

TRAFFIC SOURCES: People like to do business with people they know. If marketing effort generNow that you know CPA in general.

COST PER CLICK (CPC): If paid advertising is used, CPC is the actual price paid for each click, Cost-per click is important because it: 1) quantifies how much has to be invested to generate interest, 2) can often be tracked to a specific keyword and ad that generated the click and 3) can be changed up or down to optimize results relative to investments.

CLICK THROUGH RATE (CTR): The number of clicks an ad receives divided by the number of times the ad is shown expressed as a percentage (clicks ÷ impressions = CTR). A good click though rate depends on various factors such as channel (Paid search, Display, Facebook) and position. But good click rates usually begin in the range of 1% to 3%.

CONVERSION RATE: The percentage of users who take a desired action is the conversion rate. The desired action can take many forms, varying from site to site. Examples include sales of products, membership registrations, newsletter subscriptions, software downloads, or just about any activity beyond simple
page browsing. Conversion rate is one of the most important metrics in digital marketing and, in marketing, essential to determining return on investment (ROI)

MACRO CONVERSIONS: Because conversion rate is so important, a number of conversion activities might be tracked to understand the buying process. A macro conversion the primary conversion on a website, for example a completed online order or a completed lead generation form.

MICRO CONVERSIONS: Smaller engagements such as a newsletter sign up or a user watching a product video and micro conversion. Taken together, macro and micro conversions enable an understanding of a customer’s buying process.

CUSTOMER LIFETIME VALUE (CLV): The dollar value of a customer relationship, based on the present value of the projected future cash flow from the customer relationship. The value of knowing CLV is that it is is a prediction of the net profit attributed to the entire future relationship with a customer.

RETURN ON INVESTMENT (ROI): A performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment or to compare the efficiency of a number of different investments. ROI is the measurement that reveals how well a business is being managed. ROI is a calculation. Here are most often used calculations.

If you are a B2B marketer, do these KPIs provide the actionable scorecard to keep your business on track? Is there anything that is left out? Or you would want to consider?

Infographics have been around for many years. In newspapers, infographics are commonly used to show the weather, as well as maps, site plans, and graphs for statistical data. Modern maps, especially route maps for transit systems, use infographic techniques to integrate a variety of information.

The increase in the number of easy-to-use digital tools has made the creation of infographics widely available to everyone. Social media sites allow for individual infographics to be shared and spread around the world.